Stirring Up an Appetite for Culinary Bastille

Francophiles are expected to storm Sutton Place Hotel for Bastille Day festivities this weekend.

Tonight, French food, wine and music can be enjoyed at the poolside Calypso restaurant from 5 to 7:30 p.m. There’s no entry fee, but French regional hors d’oeuvres and beverages are $2 to $3 in scrip.

Sunday, in conjunction with one of the top 8K races in the nation (see Do It!, Page 8), a 5K run/walk, kids’ activities and a fitness expo, a Bastille Day Celebration Food Faire will take place from 8 to 11 a.m. The event will feature a sampling of items (also $2 to $3) from the hotel’s Restaurant Antoine and 10 other restaurants including J.W.’s, Ciao Mein, Royal Khyber, Five Feet, Tutto Mare, Golden Truffle and Pascal. All proceeds benefit the Food Distribution Center and Boys and Girls Club of Santa Ana.

Tonight and Friday, Antoine hosts B.Y.O.B. (“bring your own Bordeaux”) dinners. Entrees in the five-course meal include lobster with a pineapple basmati rice and macadamia nut coulis , and roasted loin of rabbit with a truffle coulis. It’s $65 per person, without tax or gratuity, and no corkage.

4500 MacArthur Blvd., Newport Beach. (714) 476-2001.

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Pascal serves five-course Bastille Day menus, with French wines and accordion music, Friday and Saturday. Seatings both nights are at 6 and 8:45. Choice of entrees includes Toulouse-style cassoulet and a Provencale rabbit stew. It’s $51 per person, without tax or gratuity.

Incidentally, Pascal and the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton in Dana Point have both just been awarded two toques, with 16 of 20 possible points, from the French-based Gault Millau, placing them among the guide’s Top 17 restaurants in Southern California.

Pascal, 1000 Bristol St., Newport Beach. (714) 752-0107.

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Irvine Marketplace hosts two events this weekend, both with American flavors.

“M-A-R-K-E-T Americana Festivale,” a farmers market on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., will emulate its European open-air counterparts with chalk artistry and street entertainment. (The farmers market continues indefinitely, every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.)

Competitions at an All-American Mustang Show and Apple Pie Extravaganza, Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., include an apple-pie-eating contest (enter by 11:30 a.m., limit 10 entrants, contest at noon) and an apple pie cook-off (entries by noon, judging at 1 p.m.). The Orange County Mustang Club will showcase 125 Ford Mustangs including 1965 coupes, convertibles and fastbacks; car judging is at 3 p.m.

The Marketplace is at the corner of Campus Drive and Bridge Road, across from UC Irvine. Phone (714) 854-3779.